Friday, May 26, 2006
Confront your shame, and honor the heroes
The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful editorial this morning that asks a couple of very telling questions:
Here's a Memorial Day quiz:
1. Who is Jessica Lynch?
Correct. She's the Army private captured, and later rescued, in the early days of the war.
2. Who is Leigh Ann Hester?
Come on. The Kentucky National Guard vehicle commander was awarded a Silver Star last year for fighting off an insurgent attack on a convoy in Iraq. The first woman to receive a Silver Star since World War II, and the first woman ever to receive one for close combat.
If you don't recognize Sergeant Hester's name, that's not surprising. While Private Lynch's ordeal appears in some 12,992 newspaper and broadcast reports on the Factiva news service, Sergeant Hester and her decoration for extraordinary valor show up in only 162.
One difference: Sergeant Hester is a victor, while Private Lynch can be seen as a victim. And when it comes to media reports about the military these days, victimology is all the rage. For every story about someone who served out of conviction and resolutely went on with his civilian life, there are many more articles about a soldier's failure or a veteran's floundering.
There is no denying this tendency in the press. The question is, what is its cause? Surely some of it derives from the national obsession with victimization that pervades press coverage generally. I do not understand why any fifth tier pseudo-celebrity can attract the attention of the mainstream media by claiming that he was abused as a child, but I assume it is because a large proportion of Americans are fascinated by it. Whether this is because they, too, have been victimized -- at least in their own minds -- or the reverse -- that they feel that they are giving "penance" for their great luck to be living in this amazing country at this prosperous and exciting time -- I do not know.
There is something deeper, though. I think we resent the all-volunteer military. It is a constant rebuke to those of us who might have done more for our country, but decided not to. When the heroes are draftees, we can honor them for having risen above the misfortune of their low draft number. They lost the lottery, and still they thrived. The draftee is not different from us in the choices he made, he simply made the most of his bad fortune. We imagine we might have risen to the same challenge.
When our soldiers are volunteers, however, many of us are both mystified by the decision that they made and embarrassed that we did not make the same decision. We are ashamed by their heroism, because it reminds us of our own self-indulgence. We then compound the insult by not recognizing our own weakness and honoring the heroes in spite of it.
Have the self-awareness to honor the accomplishments of our soldiers, and the choice they made. It seems to me that we owe our soldiers at least that much.
6 Comments:
By 
Pax Federatica, at
Fri May 26, 09:56:00 AM:
Of course, there's also the small matter that, at least in the minds of the liberal elite, actually honoring the real heroism in the Iraq war is an implicit endorsement of the war itself - and we can't have that now, can we?
By Consul-At-Arms, at
Fri May 26, 10:46:00 AM:
For years I've heard otherwise perfectly sane people claim they "couldn't" be in the military because they "could never let someone tell them what to do all the time."
Yeah, right. You get over that little mental block about 0.3 seconds after meeting your first drill instructor.
I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/05/re-confront-your-shame-and-honor.html
By Eric, at
Fri May 26, 02:11:00 PM:
By 
, at
Fri May 26, 03:54:00 PM:
Thanks, TH. My son enlisted in the Marines just over a year ago. As the former owner of a student deferment, followed by a high enough draft lottery number, I can attest to the truth of your observation. My son is indeed "a constant rebuke to (at least one) of us who might have done more for our country, but decided not to." Ouch!
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri May 26, 06:14:00 PM:
I was asked a couple of weeks ago by a friend of a friend (after he spotted my dogtags) if I felt like a victim of the government.
After determining that he was serious, I then explained that everyone in the military volunteered for it and that compared to many if not most governments, including their armed forces, ours was positively enlightened. He just smiled and nodded, probably concluding that I must be brainwashed or something.
By , at
Mon May 29, 09:09:00 PM:
Who is Leigh Ann Hester?
More on Leigh Ann Hester, whose actions in combat we named as one of the 20 greatest moments in 2005.
